Utah Passes White-Collar Felon Registry

The New York Times ^ | 11 March 2015 | Ben Protess

[Theoria]

With just a point and a click, you can browse a face book of felons, a new government website that will warn of the danger these criminals pose to society.

Only these are not the faces of sex offenders and serial killers. These criminals are mortgage schemers and inside traders, most likely armed with nothing more than an M.B.A. or a law degree.

Their faces will soon appear online courtesy of the Utah Legislature, which on Wednesday approved a measure to build the nation’s first white-collar offender registry, appending a scarlet letter of sorts on the state’s financial felons. The registry — quirky even by the standards of a legislature that this week reinstated firing squads as a method of execution — will be replete with a “a recent photograph” of Utah’s white-collar offenders and, in case they try to run or hide, their “date of birth, height, weight, and eye and hair color.”

“White-collar crime is an epidemic in Utah,” said Sean Reyes, the state’s attorney general who formulated the idea for the registry when he was a defense lawyer, “representing some of these bad guys.” A former mixed martial arts fighter who has a metal plate lodged in his eye socket from a basketball injury, Mr. Reyes noted that while violent crimes were devastating, many “physical wounds heal,” whereas white-collar crimes “can forever deplete your life savings.”

While some Utah lawmakers fear that the registry is overkill, the idea does tap into a vein of populist outrage over financial misdeeds. As much as sex offender registries spread state by state, so too could a white-collar crime registry find favor across the nation, say its supporters.

[Sasparilla]

Will they be posting pictures of banks, or just their names, a d/or logos?

[marron]

Once the punishment is exacted, the state should have no more claim on the offender.

That is my view. If you want someone in jail for life, make that the law. But once he has served his time, and fulfilled the parole requirements, thats it.

If having served his time he can never find employment, or housing, or get his life back together, you may as well leave him incarcerated.